Singularity Hub reports of the extraordinary capability of a milling machine from Daishin Seiki Corporation. For its 50th anniversary last year, the Japanese company used a 5-axis mill to carve out a full-face, fully detailed motorcycle helmet out of a single aluminum cube.

As you can see in the video below, the machine, guided by Open Mind's sophisticated 3D design software - HyperMill, simply turns the workpiece in five axes of motion (any more would be redundant) to remove material in every conceivable spot to end up with a seamless, intricate sculpture as illustrated in the above image.

...this level of production is becoming the new standard. Your average industrial company got hi-tech in a hurry and now we have machines that can transform computer designs into the highest quality professional metal objects, seemingly at a push of a button. Human machinists are left in the dust.

Christopher Jablonski is a freelance technology writer. Previously, he held research analyst positions in the IT industry and was the manager of marketing editorial at CBS Interactive. He's been contributing to ZDNet since 2003.
Christopher received a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Illinois at U...
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